Borzakovskiy wins 400 metres in Russian Winter

Borzakovskiy
wins 400 metres in Russian Winter
Nikolay Ivanov for the IAAF
31 January 2002 – Moscow - The
Moscow international meeting “Russian winter” was marked by an outstanding women’s high
jump. The season’s world leader, Marina Kuptsova (2.00) from Moscow was an easy winner
with a clearance of 1.98. The runner-up with 1.95 was a newcomer Yelena Sivushenko,
considered to be another potential leader of the Russian team.

“I stopped competition and did not try
to jump higher because I want to keep my energy for the European indoor championships,”
said Marina. “I ‘ll try to jump 2,00 –2,02 in Vienna to win the title. I am the best now
in my country, as Olympic champion Yelena Yelesina lives now in Australia and it looks
like she has finished with the jumps.”

Kuptsova says that now she has got much
more stability in her results and easily jumps 1.94 in her everyday training. This level
makes her very sure that she can reach 2.00 at any competition.

Meanwhile Yuriy Borzakovskiy ran the
400m in 47.44 without any problems. But after the competition he once again rejected the
possibility that he had any desire to join the national team at the indoor competitions in
Vienna and Glasgow. It looks like his prime task in the new year will be participating in
meetings in Europe and may be at the World Cup if he is selected for the team.

“It is his own choice. We do not want to
dictate to him what to do. We have enough good athletes in our team besides Borzakovskiy,”
said chief coach Valeriy Kulichenko.

World champion Olga Yegorova also
decided to miss the indoor championships. But her coach says that she will make an
impressive indoor start in Stuttgart (3 February) and will then compete in Gent (10
February). Another world champion, triple jumper Tatiana Lebedeva has taken a rest because
she is going to become a mother.

In the 60m hurdles, Yevgeniy Pechenkin
marked a new Russian record with his time of 7.46, a season’s leading performance. Now he
is aiming to improve his result with each competition.

“It is the first time that I begin the
year with such a good result and it gives me hope for the first place in Vienna,”
said Yevgeniy.

“Russian Winter” was financed by the
Russian government, which is investing now great money in order to acieve leadership in
world sport. The athletics federation has got all the support to provide athletes with non
stop training in sports camps.